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Aberham wrote:Mission Name: The caravan contract.Mission Rank: Experienced.Location: Samasa Desert.Description: The merchant ships are going through the desert this time, defend them against a gang of bandits. You will not need to do all the work, they have other mercenary with them and it is your job to lead them all through the dessert.Requirements: Make sure all the carts get to their destination safely.Player Count: 1Reward: 300k Rupees and 500 xp.Word Count: 3500 words, one post.Mission Boss: N/A

Abraham had been taking a break.

His last battle with a mighty Cyclops had left him bruised in many places. He had taken refuge in an inn room at Horon city. The knight recovered naturally most days. He eaten healthy food, kept up with his training routine, and saw the sights of a land different from his home. He visited several healers to speed up the process of his recovery, he was told that his body was doing much better than other adventurers. Who they say many come back with crippling wounds to see them take up lives of farming or servitude.

He had to work a bit harder to find a job that could pay his rates in a city like this. They were in need of skilled labour all over the place, but only a few people required armed help, he had to observe many new laws while he was in town. They were not radically different from Hyrule, but he visited the embassy to receive a tourist list of what he could and couldn't do. Some local delicacies, landmarks, inns.

He played tourist for a few weeks, falling back on his heavy savings to spend on. He tried many new foods, saw sights that he had never heard about, and recovered after three and a half weeks. Finally ready to take on some work, he had to find a guild of adventurers who could provide legal work since his shady illegal contacts in this area were not yet known to him.

Eventually he found a job, leadership was needed for a merchant convoy. What was better than guarding one merchant cart through a desert of thieves? Guarding three through a desert filled with monsters and quicksand! As of late there had been a bandit problem on the path's they were taking. A few more carts had gone missing, even though most of the heavily used paths were supposed to be free of quicksand.

He saddled up his horse, and galloped into the unknown desert. He had only been in one desert, the desert of thieves. Surely is one could be no worse? He had his weaponry and his few compact possessions, like a good book, a bunch of water, and a bit of red wine. Whine like this was good for the heart, so he drank a bit every night before he went to bed. He certainly was not leaving that behind!though he hoped the men he would be working with would be an honest sort and not take all of his alcohol while he slept.

He met up with his employer at the far end of the desert, or rather his employers on a village where they were gathering resources to make their long trip. The first man he met in the group inside an in was a native of the desert. He had the tan skin of many of the other natives who lived in the desert, along with a brown cloak that went to his shins. He was a blond haired man who had grown his shining hair all the way to his neck.

The other one of the thre was a redheaded woman, he was reading a book on the bar table and had a satchel that presumably contained a couple more. She had a walking staff next to her chair, so either she was a cripple or she was a caster. The fair look his hers eyes and clear health in her voice made him think she was the seconds of the two. He thought he might like to learn from another caster, he was learning magic as well with his standard knightly training.

The third man he had seen before! It was the same merchant he had helped get through a different dessert when he was undergoing a defense contract for his wagon in his amateur days. He had just gotten back from the latrine, or rather the outdoor one. While Abraham talked with the other two he appeared right behind him. Despite the noisy uncoiled door hinges he had done so with the footsteps of a ghost!

He recoiled and spilt his drink, a shame. Milk, even goat milk. Was very hard to get ahold of out here and sold for just under their weight in blue rupees. The young man with a blue dessert rove was ecstatic to see him again. Even if he was not glad to meet his number one fan, he responds to him kindly and accepted his offer to buy him another pint of milk. What he was not ecstatic about was him loudly decreeing to his friends or at least, coworkers. That he knew Aberham as a good friend and a flat out hero as a guard on the road.

He went in for eight minutes, hardly pausing to take a breath. The blond haired man just nodded and had a bit of goats cheese, the woman went "Yeah." "Uh huh." "Totally. "Right?" After every sentence, while clearly reading a book in some other language on ancient lore. Aberham whispered into the bartender's ear to put something strong and full of booze on his milk. He nodded, put in a shot of something with three x's internationals under the table, and did not charge him a rupee extra. It looked like he was sick of listening to the boy talk to.

Eventually the talk turned to business, he was told where they were going, the amount of other merc's the had hired for safety, they quietly discussed that they were shipping valuable golden ore to another kingdoms capital city for trade with a smithy. The smithy would give them spears, they would go into the forests, the Moglins would take the spears and give incredibly valuable fruit, they would then exchange the fruit for rupees with a chef in castle town and presumably go off on some other ludicrous adventure.

He pitched his rates and after a bit of debate and about twenty two words of recommendation from his one man fan club he got an exemplary six figure salary. He noticed that whenever the blond man would say something it would be in a language that he did not understand, followed by a quick translation from the woman. He hoped this would not make communication difficult. Once all was agreed on between them Abraham presented a prepared contract for them to all sign in their blood.

The man in blue expected this and was quick to cut himself and sign. It must have been more common wherever the man in yellow came from, for once he saw how his partner signed it he cut himself with a knife from a far away land and signed. The woman reached for a quill and ink out of her satchel, only for Aberham to snap his fingers. "Such a contract that could possibly mean exchanging blood for blood money can only be signed in blood." She sighed, and only because her friends did it agreed. She took her friends well oiled, well sharpened knife, wiped it down with a rag to remove any blood, hesitated for a moment and the cut open her palm. Letting out a girlish cry as she did so. Once she had signed Aberham removed his glove, drew his sword, cut his hand and signed his own name. The contract was forged.

He paid for a room far away from the merchants room. (The thought of a blue stealthy visitor coming into his room at night terrified him) He slept well, woke up the next morning with the slightest of hangovers. He had a bit of fuzziness in his head, but he drank some tonic he bought from a snake oil salesman and through the power of placebo he was healed.

He got all of his equipment, ate what would surely be his last hearty healthy breakfast in the inn he went to go find the merc's he would be in charge of for the rest of the trip. They had all gotten one room in the only other inn in town to save money. He met them all, they had two skilled archers, and three swordsman, two of which were equipped with shields a buckler with a longsword and a much bigger shield with a gladius of all things. The other one was equipped with a greatsword so heavy he could not possibly have a shield. Aside from the two equipped with the big sword and big shield respectively, they were all scrapping you're lads. Eager to prove themselves. They were told by their employer that he was their boss and would act as their security leader. They all gave him a salute, they swapped names, and Aberham departed with them to go meet the merchants at the dispatch point.

They were ready and raring to go, the woman's horse was drawn by two horses that looked like they would not be out of place in a royal stable. The young man in blue had the same two brown horses he was accustomed to in their previous desert journey, however they looked much more healthy. Like the difference between students who were living off ramen noodles in college versus meat and potatoes at home, or he supposed two horses that had been living off stale oasis water and cheap cud when compared to horses who had been drinking fresh rain water and green shining grass. The third man was on a carriage drawn by two camels, where the hell was this guy from!?

The group decided on which path they would take to get out of the village, then got out of town without waiting. The merc's walked next to the carts mostly, occasionally one or two of them would be a bum and sit on a cart. But half of their job was looking tough so they walked next to them, even though they got sand in their shoes. Abraham was so glad to have a horse, Joey was glad his mission was to get across the desert and not to dodge fire blasts or rolling boulders.

Abe swapped battle story's with the other merc's. The archers were brothers and had been archers assigned to defending Hyrule castle against invaders. They had to be disciplined but in the end it was the low pay that drove them both to be mercenaries. One of them jumped to conclusions and made up his mind quickly, he had come up with the idea. The other carefully took what his brother had proposed and thought about it for a week before he agreed to go with his brother and join the small mercenary company they currently worked for. They tales they could tell about were mostly the targets they had hit, high flying birds or acorns hanging of tree's a long way away. The brash one could shoot faster and had the best story's of hitting targets at extreme range. The other put more time into his arrows, he had never tried to make the long range shots of his brother but he could more consistently hit the targets he did pick.

The young man armed with a longsword had once dreamed of being a Hylian knight. But getting very drunk and sleeping clean through his exam in the noon meant he could never be a knight. He instead joined a mercenary company which was a bit more lax on alcohol. Not that he was a drunk but when he stayed up late he liked to have a nip. It took quite a lot of asking to get the information out of him, he expressed his disappointment in the fact that he had never gotten to lead a heroic charge for his mercenary company or killed a monster bigger than he was. Mostly he had been called for to block the projectiles of foes. He did not like this because he did not even want to have a shield. He would rather engage in battle like his coworker with only a sword. But he did not have the pure skill to go down that path and the company he worked for was very stingy in purchasing expensive suits of armor for just anyone. But bucklers with wooden rims were cheap as tip plated dirt.

The one with a big shield and a short sword had been a merc for a lot of his life, and he used to be a farmer like Aberham. He had seen a bunch of combat, and knew the value of a good shield. He had bought this equipment with his own money and his had cost him a pretty penny, but charging forward and taking hits meant for the squishier parts of his party always brought him great joy. No telling how many times it had saved his rp the lives of others. After a year where his kill number had risen dramatically the company he works for give him a reimbursement. He was a trusted member of his unit and his friends swore by him as a useful ally in combat or otherwise.

The last one in heavy armor with a heavy weapon on his back had seen combat in all parts of the world. He was being paid slightly less than Aberham and had done some things to rival his own feets. He was old enough to be a geezer and sure enough when he took off his helmet to bring a canteen to his lips he saw an elderly man in great shape with grey hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He did not talk very much but when he did it was almost always useful. "Quicksand ahead." He would say at the front of the party just a few feet away, even though the archers could not see it despite being trained scouts. But sure enough when they would throw a rock ahead to check and see it would sink like a... Well like a stone. He did so no less than three times on their first day.

After a long day of getting to know his co workers, he picked a secure oasis on the map, fed his horse, brushed his teeth and and went to bed in his nap sack, he let the others see his face when he slept, for he trusted them.

They rose early the next day at dawn and set out immediately after breakfast and a small break. He used the forty minutes of daylight to sharped and oil his sword, as well as clean out a alrge amount of the sand from his armor with a tool that the yellow robed man was happy to lend him, none of the other mercs knew what it was but the oldest most heavily armored of them asked for a turn after Abe. He must have been from a far away place, thought Aberham.

They walked on for longer and longer, if it wasn't for the grass around the oasis he was sure that all of the horses would have dropped dead in this heat. Except maybe the camels. When he trotted near the strange animals he saw they had fangs and the yellow robed man fed them salted pork. W-Was he even from this world? Did he hail from the twilight dimension or some other plain of existence?

It offered him a lot to think about. Eh, he was probably just a crazy old dessert trader with some monsters he tamed as pack animals. The archers spotted a few monsters in the distance, stalfos by the look. At around nine am they were going down a side path that Aberham had heard nothing about. Though he had studied much in his youth only a master of geography could even hope to pin down the safest path through this maze of dunes.

He was eating a bit of bread, he wasn't hungry, but he was so bored that even the roughest, toughest bread would do wonders to busy his mind. His horse stepped on a rock and since his mind was wandering he dropped his tasty snack. He pulled on the saddle and made his horse stop. Who turned around to look at him with bored, wide eyes. He figured that if he cut off the bit that touched the sand it would be more than alright. He bent over and reeched his long arm out to get it. As soon as he did an arrow whizzed over his head and stuck itself into the womans wooden cart.

He jumped up immediately, got his shield ready and peered into the distance. He saw a couple of well endowed archer women with a quiver of arrows and yellow clothing. One punched her partner in the arm for missing a stationary target. Their goal was to take out the strongest of them before they would attack the caravan. The angry woman quickly notched another arrow and shot it at his head!

This time he was ready, he raised his shield and the arrow snapped in two. The youngest of the group, the longswordsman peered around the wagon he had been guarding to see what the commotion was about. Aberham drew his lance and waved it in the air. “BANDITS! ALLAAARM!” An archer who had been sitting on a different wagon turned his highly tuned senses to the direction of the two. He saw an arrow on the ground next to a piece of bread? But then he saw another arrow lodged into the cart!

Using the direction in which the arrows came from he looked up a sand dune and saw two archers with exotic bows and arrows lining up a shot on his friends! He drew an arrow and thank goodness he was the more brash of the two because he shot it very quickly and managed to hit an archer with an arrow notched in her bow clean in the shoulder. Her partner gasped and caught her before she fell. While still holding her wounded friend she yelled out “ALERASSA, ALERASSA!” To which the man in yellow wheeled around to here. For it meant “Bandits, attack!”

No less than a dozen Gerudo thieves with black skin and scimitars in each hand rose from the sandy dunes next to the entire convoy! They were surrounded and did not even know it! Aberham immediately had to beat one back with the sharp edge of his lance. He wondered what women of their race armed with those weapons were doing here? Had the desert of thieves been so badly overcome with danger and competition that this gang was forced out!?

He slapped a sword out of another woman's hand with his long weapon before she could even get close enough to swing. He realised that while he might be able to fend off the attack for himself only with his strength and skill, that his job was to guard the caravan as a whole.

Everyone was engaged in combat at the moment, his blue robed friend had disappeared, the woman whom he had suspicions of knowing magic was showing that she did fully know such spells and was throwing thunderbolts and small fireballs out like candy. None of the attacks were strong enough to kill, but they did leave foes stunned and reeling in pain.

He watched as his yellow robed client drew the same exotic knife he had used to let it own blood for the contract and cutted someone with it who was trying to come up on his wagon. It was long like a machete and he stared in awe out of the corner of his eye as he hopped off his seat near his camels, but the leather holding the two of them in place then hopped in between one of their humps, he slapped the mount on the back and it charged out into a woman, it galloped as fast as it’s feet would take it. He ran down a woman, cut a few more people with his knife, all while shouting out foreign words at the top of his lungs. His translator was too busy to speak, she was saying incantations just as hard to understand. Oh, and the other camel sunk its fangs into another woman who dropped her weapons and started punching it in the nose.

The men underneath him were engaged in weapon on weapon combat, the archers were too busy taking cover in their cart and trading arrows with the other archers, one who was injured had pulled her own arrow out of her flesh and shot it back at her attacker.

It was total chaos all around. Aberham stuck his lance in the ground and yelled over the entire battlefield with the force of a military commander. “EVERYONE, DEFEND THE CENTER CART.” He drew his sword to slam into his shield. “ON ME! ON ME!” Mercinarys casted off their attackers, casters jumped from one car to another, camel riders pulled their steeds back over, battle camels came trotting over with an arm in their mouth. Well only one of the last three, but Aberham had pooled his resources and was ready to fight.

He wondered where the young man in blue had gone. He hoped he did not have a fatality already, when he was looking around for him as his forces gathered a woman he did not even see swung her weapon. He was at to bad of an angle to block her, and in his panic he forgot his shield spell. Just when it looked like he was in a whole lot of hurt the man in blue appeared behind the woman, his form coming just out of of the sand silently like some kind of dessert demon. He grabbed her by the sides and blood came out of her side, what? He had a knife in his hand and Aberham could not even see it at point blank range. The woman gasped as her lung was peirced and fell over to bleed out into the vital organ and die on the ground. Mr.Blue had a crazy confedent sort of smile on his face. “I played a lot of hunt the snake a lot when I was younger.” He said, before hitting the deck and rolling under the wagon to disappear again. He looked like a badass but in reality he was clawing his way through the sand to rebury himself.

Now Aberham had two shield men, a great swordsman if an elderly one, a couple Archers who had recently won a battle with their opponents, a caster of reasonable skill and another mounted man and a beast of war tha-... Oh hell, he didn't know what to do with them. In mercenary training he had never been taught to deal with camel war beasts or mounted cavalry that was only equipped with a knife.

His enemy was also gathering for their attack. They were not trying to loot the now mostly unguarded carts, they had to kill their prey to loot everything including their weapons and armor to make their time worth it.

The black knight knew that aggressive tactics would need to be used to survive this battle without casualties. He knew these men now, and their lives were on his hands! He secured his lance to his horse and jumped off, allowing the mage to jump on since she had taken many riding lessons as a girl on her fathers estate and could fight more effectively on it. He drew his own sword and took position on the right. Letting the left handed longswordsman be on the left and the one with the biggest shield stay in the middle where he belonged.

He gave an order that only mercenary's would know. “FORWARD! TWO STEPS!” The men knew instinctively what the orders meant, the eldest still shouted them out it battle. They all as a unit took two mighty steps forward, poking their foe’s with their weapons. Except for the elderly man, he saw a target get hit in the chest with an arrow and leaned in with his massive sword to cut her head off. He succeeded, and it bounced off of Aberhams shield satisfyingly.

He swung his improved weapon at the nearest unarmored assailant and cut her in the chest. For a second it felt and looked to her as if nothing happened, the man with the large shield next to him gave a questioning glance. Then a very fine cut appeared on her chest, it pierced the bone and cut right into a valve on her heart. She gripped the wound as blood poured immediately after it. She looked into the eye holes of her killer, she saw his brown eyes, and his adrenalin fueled smile. Just as she was about to fall back and let death claim her the more intelligent of the two archers nailed her in the head. He was not incredibly lethal, picking off the mortally wounded. But the archer was incredibly merciful and passionate at the same time.

His swordsmen gutted a woman who dared attack. But it seemed like the momentum they had with their two step charge was all gone, it was back into a senseless melee. He could feel everyone’s need of direction towards him. He yelled. “RAGERS, CASTER!” The woman was very well studied and quick. She knew when called that Aberham was talking to her. The archers let loose arrows into the eight bandits of the dessert remaining, she had been powering up a spell for just this occasion. She muttered an arcane incantation and held her arms out, fingers outstretched like a sith lord. She toasted everyone who opposed them just a little, stunning them all. Two arrows found their marks in vital organs. The remaining number of them were scattered, stunned, and toasty. “BREAK FORMATIONS, FINISH THEM!” The men obeyed, their weapons found their marks. A camel who had somehow understood his order leapt on someone and flat out mauled them. One woman with the common sense to leg it up a sand dune was about to get away. He almost signaled his archers to take care of her but then his greatest fan in the whole wide universe pulled his sand snake act once more and his foot tripped her. His hand punched her in the face knocking her out, and the rest of him came up next to catch her before she could fall.

In the end three bandits were caught, tied up, gagged, and thrown in the back of the yellow mans cart since it was a reformatted carriage with extra tough glass. They would remain locked in there until they got to town and were turned in. Once they had a proper identity from a wanted poster they realised anyone in the entire gang was wanted for a laundry list of murders, lucrative thefts, and armed robbery. They would be going away for a long time.

Once in town which was just a few hours away they surveyed the damage. It was mostly cosmetic, a few arrows got pulled out of the carts and the man with a yellow robe would need a new window or two but the goods were totally unharmed and soon there would be no shortage of rupees for him to spend on a new window. He could probably buy the next ones bomb proof.

Turned out he was an old cavalry man from a recently conquered kingdom. He had heard a few stories from such a place in books as a child. It had a rich culture and history. But it had been in a slow decline ever since the last hero had perished. The last parting words he said to him was difficulty. “Well, done. Great, fighter.” He said with a thick accent and pausing in between each word to remember how it went.

The woman was impressed in the knowledge he had shown in battle. “You really must stay in contact sir knight. There is much we can learn from each other.” She slipped a tiny piece of parchment into his pants with her address on it. She was the daughter of a noble for another kingdom! It said to the estate and everything. It was basically the medieval equivalent of a phone number. A knights third code of chivalry was to his woman. Would he have someone to send letters home too? Only time would tell.

The man in blue was not quite as talkative, still he was shaking like someone with A.D.H.D. But when they arrived in town he just told him about how he had heard a song about him slaying a cyclops. He got a hug from the kid, it was at that moment that he realised he was a father figure to the boy. The boy had taken up the life as a merchant because it was what his father had done before he died. If it wasn't for the black hair, he could have mistaken him for any one of his younger brothers.

His broken heart felt sad, for even though he had risked his life to save everyone he had just worked with, he hadn't even bothered to ask their names. What? Did you think the storyteller was just being lazy calling everyone by their equipment, gender, or choice of robe? Nope, after all he had done to protect these people and this kid especially he couldn't even remember one of their names despite being introduced and having three of them written in the very blood of their owners on a contract in his pack. He did not know how to respond to the display of the affection, and stiffened up in his strangely cold armor. He said nothing which was alright because the young man had already vanished, like a ghost into the desert town.

At last was the mercenaries. What better way to soothe a broken heart than with copious amounts of alcohol. They had as big of a payday as he did, they bought rounds of drinks for everyone and he had a smashing night with them all. They did so because life was short,in their line of work they had a very high risk of death. Aberham was happy to be drunk. It made his bruises feel better. And nothing else.

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